For the record

The Grand Tour

Thomas Heywood has travelled over 750,000 miles or 1.2 million kilometres performing solo concerts on the most celebrated pipe organs across the globe. He has performed international solo tours throughout North America, the UK, Europe and Russia in venues from Windsor Castle to the largest outdoor pipe organ in the world in San Diego, California. He continues solo touring internationally each year.

From one standing ovation to the next

Thomas Heywood has performed concerts throughout the USA from Southern California to New England and from New Orleans to Minneapolis.

Acclaimed concerts: on the largest pipe organ in New York City at The Riverside Church; at Christ Church Cathedral in New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina; at the famous Methuen Memorial Music Hall near Boston; at Dallas, Texas; at Chattanooga, Tennessee; at Dayton, Ohio; at Lincoln, Nebraska; at Buffalo, New York; at Portland, Maine; at Orlando, Florida and at the Cincinnati Museum Center, to name but a few, have earned him an enviable reputation from critics and audiences alike as "unsurpassed today...beyond brilliant".

God Save the Queen

Heywood has performed solo concerts throughout England, Scotland and Wales on the most famous pipe organs in Britain.

Ireland is no stranger to Heywood’s concerts where, as the critics say, he has "a rapport that a rapper would envy." From Galway Cathedral on the west coast to several concerts in Waterford Cathedral since 2004, Irish audiences have been brought to "noisy standing ovations."

Beethoven in Bonn and a World Heritage Site

Heywood has performed throughout Germany.

He has performed Beethoven’s music in Bonn, the famous composer’s birthplace. He has given a solo concert in the 4th-century Basilica of Constantine in Trier, the largest extant hall from antiquity and a World Heritage Site. He has performed in the celebrated Marktkirche in Wiesbaden, Paderborn Cathedral, Himmerod Abbey, Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin, Koblenz, Altenberg and more.

In 2012, Heywood was invited for an immediate season return solo concert on the largest pipe organ in Austria: the world-famous "Bruckner Organ".

A first outside Europe and North America

In January 2012, Heywood became the first artist based outside Europe and North America to be signed by Karen McFarlane Artists in the 91-year history of the world’s premier management for concert organists.

Since 1921, the agency has managed the Who’s Who of world-famous organists from Marcel Dupré, Louis Vierne, Fernando Germani and Joseph Bonnet to Maurice Duruflé, Anton Heiller, Jean Langlais and Flor Peeters. In recent years, other organists managed by the agency include Dame Gillian Weir and Simon Preston. The present roster includes the world’s most celebrated organists and the world’s finest choirs from New College, Oxford to Westminster Abbey.

A first for Australia

Thomas Heywood was the first Australian musician in history to live as a professional concert organist. "Australia’s premier organist" has also performed more concerts in Australia than any other organist. To date, he has presented over 1,700 concerts around Australia to over 600,000 people.

Recordings across three continents

In 2009 Heywood became the first, and remains the only, concert organist in the world to release three recordings from three different continents within seven months: Australia, Europe and North America.

To Russia with Love

In December 2012 and January 2013, Heywood performed a solo concert tour of Russia from the Pacific Coast to Moscow - across nine time zones.

Heywood and Australia’s Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ

Thomas Heywood first performed on the Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ when he was 16 years old.

As part of the City of Melbourne’s 150th Celebrations, he made the first major commercial recording on the Grand Organ at 18 years of age.

In 1994, the City of Melbourne presented 20 year-old Thomas Heywood in a year-long series of Grand Organ Concerts at the Melbourne Town Hall – the first time such a solo series had been presented for over fifty years since the resignation of the last Melbourne City Organist, Sir William McKie, in 1938. Performing regular concerts on the grandest organ in Australia, Heywood reached out to thousands of people and began to build his immense repertoire of the finest concert organ music.

In 2001, following the A$4.5 million rebuilding of the Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ as the largest musical instrument in the southern hemisphere, Heywood performed the Opening Solo Concert on the instrument when he was 27 years old.

Heywood’s premiere CD and DVD of the new Grand Organ broke records and became among the best-selling organ recordings of all time.

In 2011, supported by the City of Melbourne, Heywood released a new CD celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the Opening of the new Grand Organ.

Heywood has performed on the Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ more than any other living organist.

"The Crocodile Hunter of the Organ" (The Dallas Morning News) and
ANZCO – The Australian and New Zealand College of Organists

Heywood is committed to promoting and preserving Australasia’s unique pipe organ heritage. In addition to his work as a concert artist, in 2011 he became the Founding President and Australian National Director of the Australian and New Zealand College of Organists (ANZCO) - www.anzco.org - the only pipe organ related organisation working internationally in Australia and New Zealand with links around the world to build the future for the Pipe Organ in Australasia.

The largest musical instrument in any Australian school

Heywood was the Consultant for the installation of the largest and most valuable musical instrument in any Australian school: the Grand Concert Organ in Aikman Hall, Haileybury, Melbourne. He opened the instrument in 2009.

Heywood and the complete Beethoven Symphonies

For the first time in history, Thomas Heywood is arranging and performing the complete Beethoven Symphonies for concert organ solo. This is the first time a solo concert performer has attempted such an incredible feat.

An audience of over 2,000 people gave Heywood’s world premiere performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony a standing ovation and three encores at the Opening Solo Concert on Australia’s new Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ.

At his Concert Organ Spectacular on 9 September 2001, Heywood’s world premiere performance of Beethoven’s First Symphony in C major was met with another standing ovation.

Thomas Heywood’s series of Beethoven’s complete symphonies makes the most significant contribution to the concert organ repertoire since the death of virtuoso concert organist Edwin H. Lemare in 1934.

The complete Beethoven Symphonies are being published by Hillwood Publishing. Symphony No. 5 in C minor is available now.

Thomas Heywood and the previous ‘Golden Age’ of the Concert Organ!

Thomas Heywood’s research interests are in the repertoire, performers and organs of the 19th and early 20th centuries, especially the previous ‘Golden Age’ of the Concert Organ between 1840 and 1930.

For three years from 1992 Heywood made the one of the first comprehensive studies of the work of W.T. Best, acclaimed as the greatest 19th-century concert organist; Heywood compiled a complete catalogue of Best’s contribution to the repertoire, as well as undertaking an extensive study of Best’s life and character.

He has also contributed to The Oxford Companion to Australian Music and his articles have been published in learned musical journals and magazines around the world.
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